AVR-Chat

I won't lie to you- I'm totally new with the AVR line of processors,
but I've got a rather mystifying problem that just doesn't seem to be
addressed anywhere:
I order my STK500 and a set of ATMega32's, get them, run the test
program- works perfectly.
I then hooked up the serial cable, started programming (linux platform,
avr-gcc and avrdude), no problem. I got two or three small sample
programs to work, shut it down for the night, and go to bed.
I wake up the next morning and decide to run one of the programs I had
gotten working the night before, but lo and behold- no dice. All the
same indicators of success- avrdude gives me the paged access, failed
with 128 message, but it had done that before and the programs still
worked. The only difference was that now it wouldn't work. I tried the
windows IDE to no effect (recognized it, programmed it, no errors,
program still not working), and finally gave up and went to class,
turning it off on the way. I come back, and now the windows studio
can't recognize it- says something about no suitable board- while
avrdude still says it is programming it, but to no avail. 
I have worked with microcontrollers before, PICs and BX-24's, but must
admit that this is mystifying. What am I doing wrong?